


Of Fallen Angels & Faith Forsaken

by BookishAngel (DisnerdingAvenger)



Series: An Angel and a Demon [8]
Category: Good Omens (TV), Good Omens - Neil Gaiman & Terry Pratchett
Genre: Angst, Angst with a Happy Ending, Heavy Angst, Human!Crowley, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, TW: Blood, TW: Vomit, Temporary Character Death, tw: gore
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-04-15
Updated: 2019-04-15
Packaged: 2020-01-13 14:48:10
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 14,946
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18471148
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DisnerdingAvenger/pseuds/BookishAngel
Summary: Anthony J. Crowley, a defense attorney from London, travelled to his cottage in South Downs to get some peace and quiet. The last thing that he expected was for an angel to fall in his garden like a broken, blond meteorite - and he certainly didn't expect to fall in love with him.





	Of Fallen Angels & Faith Forsaken

**Author's Note:**

> This started out vaguely as a Stardust-inspired AU, wherein Aziraphale is a fallen angel rather than a fallen star and Crowley has to nurse him back to health. It ended up taking a much angstier turn than I anticipated. MUCH angstier.

Anthony J. Crowley loved living in the city, and he loved his job – but he often found that he hated all the noise, and he hated his coworkers even more.

Being a defense attorney at a prestigious law firm in London had its perks, obviously; he was able to live in a posh flat, he could afford ridiculously expensive electronics that he rarely used (and that was if he could even figure out how to get them to turn on), and – thankfully – having copious amounts of money earned by getting sleazy, corporate criminals off meant that he could afford to take a week for himself, now and again. He wasn’t sure he would stay sane otherwise. Working alongside slime like Hastur and Ligur, who kept a running tally of who got the most murderers off despite knowing they were guilty, tended to give one a dreadful headache. Crowley was a firm believer in giving everyone a fair trial, no matter how heinous the individual - but those two blockheads didn’t need to _enjoy it_ quite so much.

Yes, no matter how much he enjoyed his upper-class London lifestyle, Crowley still enjoyed the peace and quiet of the country every now and again. It left him free to sip wine by the fire; to skim thin, stylish volumes of complicated poetry; and to have his thoughts entirely uninterrupted by Hastur and Ligur’s potentially contagious idiocy or the honking and/or shouting of impatient London drivers. Not to mention, his country cottage had a garden that he was really quite proud of; he’d tended the rose bushes and the hydrangeas for years and they were really coming along rather nicely this season.

That is, they _were_ – until suddenly his peace and quiet was rudely interrupted by the sound of something _smashing_ into his garden with enough force to shake the cottage and everything in it. Crowley’s sunglasses – which he wore indoors, even at night – fell askew when his leather sofa jolted from the impact.

His first thought was that a meteorite had fallen; what else could have hit the ground with that kind of force? Jumping to his feet, he’d tossed his poetry volume on the glass coffee table and sprinted toward the back door, visions of crashed alien space ships dancing in his head. What he found when he hurried outside was not a meteorite, nor was it otherworldly.

It was more… _ethereal_ than alien.

The first thing Crowley noticed was that his rose bushes were utterly _destroyed_ ; whatever had fallen had hit the ground at an angle, tearing the bushes from the ground entirely while also ripping up a great deal of the lawn – before crashing, limbs akimbo, into the hydrangeas.

Crowley had cursed and let out a miserable groan at the sight of years’ worth of hard work _ruined_ before his eyes finally landed on the culprit.

The way he tugged off his sunglasses was not un-Alan-Grant-like, which may have had something to do with the Spielberg marathon he’d had yesterday while day-drunk but likely had a great deal _more_ to do with the fact that what had crash landed in his garden, clearly from _very_ high up, was man-shaped, glowing, and _had wings._

The figure, presently unconscious, was surrounded by a golden, rather Heavenly light, and its wingspan was massive – although both wings appeared to have been painfully damaged in the fall. It was then that Crowley realized _other_ parts of this… this _creature_ could be damaged, as well, which finally propelled him into action. Springing down off of the deck, he hurried over his torn-up, still-smoking lawn to where the creature – which, for the most part, looked like an ordinary, if beautiful, man – was sprawled out.

Its eyes were closed, but the face was covered in scratches and abrasions and a trickle of blood was leaking from the nose; likewise, the right shoulder looked to be dislocated while the left leg was _very clearly_ broken. It was only the barely discernable rise and fall of the creature’s chest that assured Crowley it was even _alive_ after such a fall.

What was he supposed to do? He could hardly call an ambulance for a fallen, battered creature with broken wings (which had left a trail of feathers all over the garden), nor could he call animal control for something so clearly man-shaped. There was only one logical possibility for what this creature could be, but Crowley – who had been a lifelong atheist – had a difficult time coming to terms with the word and its weighty implication.

This creature, with its white wings (presently spattered with blood) and ethereal glow (which seemed to be fading the longer it lied there) was… an _angel_.

A _fallen angel_.

An angel had fallen into his garden, which meant it was all real; God, Heaven… Hell. That thought made him feel terribly uneasy, so he pushed it aside, absently giving the broken angel another once-over. He wasn’t exactly _dressed_ like an angel; there was no flowing white tunic or robes, but instead mud-stained and tattered tan trousers, an equally torn tan jacket, a tartan sweater vest (that seemed to be terribly soaked with blood and slashed near his stomach), and a truly horrid tartan bowtie. Angels dressed like his grandfather? That was unexpected.

Also unexpected was for the angel’s blue eyes to open, prompting the light surrounding him to flare almost blindingly before it snuffed out completely. The wail that followed was nothing short of agonized – rightfully so. The blood-smeared wings tried to flap, failing miserably and drawing a pained, breathless sob from somewhere deep inside of the wounded angel. Crowley was instantly reminded of a moment in his childhood when he’d come upon a dove that a group of children had mangled on his way home from school. He recalled the way it had struggled with its broken wings to fly, terrified he was going to inflict more torture upon it; troubled, young Crowley had tucked the bird into the breast pocket of his school uniform to keep it warm and took it home where he could nurse it back to health.

The bird had been relatively easy to help. An angel? That was going to be harder. _Much_ harder. But he had to help, didn’t he? It had fallen into his garden, and his cottage was the only residence around for miles. He preferred seclusion for his holidays. If he didn’t help, no one else would – and if he wasn’t already going to Hell, he certainly would be if he let an angel die.

“Don’t try to move,” he spoke without thinking, functioning largely on auto-pilot; in truth, he was still having trouble processing that this was actually happening. “You’ve had… a _fall_ , it would seem, and you’re a bit… er… banged up.”

“I can’t fly,” the angel babbled, panic clear in his bright blue eyes. “Why can’t I fly? Where am I?” and then, after a beat: “ _Who_ am I?”

“Your wings seem to be broken. No surprise, given the damage you did to my garden,” Crowley intoned, with just a hint of bitterness, before explaining, “You’re in South Downs – and I’m afraid I can’t help you with that last bit.”

“South Downs?” the angel asked, breathless with pain, panic, and obvious confusion. “That can’t be right. I should be… I should be in… Oh, I can’t _remember_. Why can’t I remember-?!”

“If I had to take a guess, I’d say you knocked your head about,” Crowley suggested, absently reaching a hand out to graze the angel’s bloodied curls in search of any pressing head trauma. The angel flinched away from his touch like a frightened animal – which, in truth, he sort of was.

“I’m not going to hurt you,” Crowley sighed, letting his hand hover, unsure of whether he ought to proceed or draw it back. “I’m trying to _help_. You crashed in my garden and there’s nobody else for miles, so you’re stuck with me. Unless you want me to leave you here, lying in my hydrangeas?”

The angel eyed Crowley with clear uncertainty which slowly melted into resignation. What choice did he have?

“Everything _hurts_ ,” he whispered, his voice cracking, and that’s when Crowley saw a single tear trickling down the angel’s cheek – clear, despite the fact that it slipped over blood, and shimmering. While his heavenly glow was snuffed out, his tears still retained that shine. Absently reaching out again, Crowley caught the tear on his thumb and stared at the way it made his own skin sparkle; it was warm in a way entirely unlike human tears. Shaking his head clear, Crowley dried his thumb on his red shirt before taking action.

“Let’s get you inside, yeah? I’ll be able to assess the damage better in the light.”

“Are you a doctor?” the angel asked, his voice trembling as Crowley carefully helped him sit up.

“A lawyer.”

“Oh.”

“Defense attorney, really.”

“ _Oh_.”

“Yeah, I know,” Crowley mumbled at the clear disdain, rolling his eyes. Heaven was already judging him for his sins? Not a good sign. “It pays the bills, though. Come on.”

With a great deal of careful maneuvering, Crowley was able to get the angel to stand and helped him limp slowly up onto the deck and into the cottage; his wings, bent awkwardly and moulting from the fall, quivered as the angel tucked them as close as he could manage to fit through the door. Without a second thought, Crowley helped him toward the bedroom down the hall; he had an absurdly large California king bed which would fit the angel and his massive wings far more comfortably than his chic, skinny leather couch. Once he was lying on the soft memory foam, a pillow beneath his head instead of the thorny hydrangea branches, the angel exhaled a shuddering sigh.

“You’re really very kind,” he croaked, blinking blearily as Crowley turned the bedroom light on, bathing the room in a warm glow.

“Don’t thank me just yet,” Crowley muttered as he turned his attention to the angel’s arm; a second later, he popped his shoulder back into place without warning. The angel screamed, lifting his other hand to bite down on his knuckles – a moment later, he relaxed.

“Oh,” he whimpered, more tears shining in his eyes. “Oh, that _does_ feel better…”

“Afraid the rest won’t be so easy to fix,” Crowley sighed, sitting on the edge of the bed and frowning at just _how_ damaged the poor thing was. The cuts and abrasions would take at least a week to heal, and he would undoubtedly be covered in awful bruises by morning light; the broken leg and wings would take even longer.

“Normally I could just miracle myself better,” the angel mumbled with a miserable sniffle, staring at the hand he had momentarily bitten and its distinct lack-of an angelic glow. “But my grace seems to be… gone.”

“I don’t think it’s _gone_ ,” Crowley disagreed, clearly sensing the distress that the thought was causing the angel. Catching another tear when it fell, this one on his index finger, Crowley held his shimmering fingertip up for the angel to examine. “See? Normal tears don’t sparkle. There’s something… er… _gracious_ about you, I should think.”

Staring at Crowley’s shimmering fingertip, the angel continued to stare for a long while before exhaling a shuddering breath, seemingly of relief.

“I didn’t _Fall,_ then,” he muttered, mostly to himself. “I just… _fell_.”

As an angel, he always had been good at vocalizing capital letters. Crowley caught the distinction.

“You don’t know _how_ you fell?” he asked, wiping yet another angelic tear on his shirt, not yet noticing the sparkling stains each gesture left on the silk.

“No,” the angel mumbled, lapsing back into his prior misery; “Nor anything else, it would seem. It’s all… _blank_.”

Without hesitating this time, Crowley leaned forward to once again examine the angel’s head.

His blond curls were matted with slowly drying blood – the product of a rather unpleasant gash, undoubtedly caused by landing head first in a thorny rose bush before skidding into the hydrangeas.

“Can angels get concussions?” Crowley asked absently, rising to his feet with the intention of getting the first aid kit and a washcloth from the ensuite bathroom.

The angel, pausing, admitted, “I suppose so. I’ve got an angelic soul, but my corporation is still human-”

“Your _what?_ ” Crowley asked when he returned, dragging a chair over from the corner to sit by the bed more attentively while he opened the first aid kit.

“My body,” the angel clarified, sighing quietly. “My body can still get hurt, get sick, die – although, if it died, Heaven could give me another. It’s just so terribly _taxing_ …”

Only half-listening, because the topic of Heaven made him anxious, Crowley tugged open the drawer of his bedside table and pulled out a penlight, recalling something from binge watching _Grey’s Anatomy_ about diagnosing concussions. He’d bought the penlight ages ago to tease the raccoons.

“Try to follow the light,” Crowley dictated, switching it on and moving the light in front of the angel’s face. Unfortunately, that was where Crowley’s diagnostic expertise ended; he wasn’t sure what the angel’s seemingly normal - if a tad delayed - responses meant. Sighing, he tossed the confounded thing aside before rifling through the first aid kit for disinfectant, moving to clean the head wound once he found it.

“This’ll probably sting,” he warned, and the angel just sighed.

“It can’t possibly make me feel any worse than I already do,” he bemoaned.

The string of curses that the angel let out while Crowley applied the disinfectant were distinctly not angelic.

* * *

Before Crowley had even finished washing the dried blood from the angel’s face, he had fallen unconscious again which, Crowley tried to assure himself, was perfectly normal – expected, even. The injured required copious amounts of rest to heal, did they not? But he’d never dealt with an injured _angel_ before; had _anyone?_

Pacing around the quiet, dimly lit bedroom, Crowley bit his black lacquered nails anxiously as he angel dozed in his bed. He wasn’t a doctor; he barely even passed the office mandated first aid course a few years back. He didn’t know how to set a broken leg, nor a broken _wing_ of this size. Taking care of the injured bird all those years ago had been simple enough; he’d fashioned splints out of popsicle sticks and fed it seeds and what worms he managed to find in the garden. That experience hadn’t been frightening; the worst case scenario would have been the bird succumbing to its injuries, upon which he would have given it a proper shoebox funeral. But if an _angel_ died on his watch?

Crowley exhaled a breathless and terrified noise that sounded very much like “ _NGK_.”

There was one person he could call for help. She lived a few miles away, in an equally secluded cottage, and – unlike Crowley, who hadn’t believed in _anything_ two hours ago – she was rather an expert when it came to the occult, so why wouldn’t she know a thing or two about the ethereal?

She was a witch. Anathema Device was a self-proclaimed witch who rode a bicycle everywhere, grew herbs in her garden, and preferred to be left alone. She and Crowley came to a mutual understanding ages ago; he wouldn’t bother her if she wouldn’t bother him, the rare exception being if she needed flowers from his garden or he needed herbs from hers, each for their own respective reasons.

( _Many of the herbs Anathema grew possessed medicinal properties – some of which were rather fun when used properly_ .) With _that_ thought in mind, Crowley’s gaze flitted once again to the drawer of his bedside table, which not only contained a rarely used penlight but _also_ contained his marijuana stash. Would an angel object to the use of a technically illegal substance? Even if it was associated with some sin or another, it could _help_ ; at the very least, it might dull the pain that he was obviously in. So, with virtually no idea what else he could do, Crowley grabbed his stash and headed out to the sitting room, setting about rolling a joint for an ethereal being while he called a witch for medical assistance.

* * *

It took a tremendous amount of self-control not to smoke up himself; it certainly would have calmed his nerves, but Crowley knew that he needed to stay sharp. Having somehow managed to convince Anathema that he _wasn’t_ lying through his teeth about an angel falling in his garden, Crowley was now anxiously waiting for two things: for the witch to arrive and help him, and for the angel in question to wake up again. The latter happened first.

Exhaling a rather pitiful groan, the blue eyes forced themselves open once more, flitting timidly around before finally settling on Crowley, who was anxiously fiddling with the joint clasped in his hand. How did one propose that an angel get high? He was quite certain he’d never even seen a scenario so preposterous in a _film_ , and that was saying something.

Fortunately, the angel broached the topic for him.

“Dear boy, is that… a _naughty cigarette?_ ”

Something, either his anxiety coupled with the stress he was feeling or just the angel saying “naughty cigarette,” made Crowley laugh once, nervously – and then again, a bit harder, until he was laughing so hard that tears were running down his face. The angel looked concerned.

“Are you high?” he questioned, managing to pull Crowley out of his laughing fit. Shaking his head, Crowley dragged his chair closer to the side of the bed, awkwardly clearing his throat before holding the joint out to the angel.

“It’s for you.”

“For _me?_ ”

“To help with the pain,” Crowley explained – for, even with his attempted mask of composure, discomfort was still written prominently on all of the angel’s features. He was in pain, and would be in pain for a while until his body started to heal. “I forgot to stock up on ordinary, run-of-the-mill painkillers before I came down earlier in the week, but… Well, I had this, so I thought… Why not?”

“‘Why not’, indeed,” the angel muttered thoughtfully, pursing his lips before taking the ‘naughty cigarette’ in the hand of his uninjured arm to examine it. “I suppose it can’t be any different from an opium pipe, can it?”

Crowley’s jaw dropped.

“From a… Sorry, _what?_ ”

“Nothing,” the angel said quickly, offering up the faintest of smiles. “A story for another time, perhaps. Have you got a light?”

“I, er… Yeah. Yeah, of course. Just let me… find it…”

Patting his pockets uselessly, given he hadn’t really expected the angel to _accept_ his offer, Crowley got to his feet to search the bedroom for his lighter, finally finding it sitting behind a potted plant on his dresser. Ah, yes – he’d forgotten that he threatened to set it on fire earlier in the day if it didn’t stop wilting.

Crossing back over to the bed, Crowley leaned over enough to light the joint, watching with clear fascination as the angel put it to his lips and took a drag, coughing only slightly. _An angel is smoking weed in my bed_ , Crowley thought to himself, unsure what to do with that information. Would he be even _more_ hell-bound now for corrupting a holy creature, or did the fact that the angel had mentioned _opium pipes_ mean that morality wasn’t so black and white, after all? Letting himself sit on the edge of the bed whilst the angel smoked, Crowley watched as he gradually began to relax into the pillows, the pained edge to his expression lessening.

“I called a friend while you were sleeping,” Crowley finally plucked up the courage to say, running a hand through his dark hair with a lingering sense of anxiety, his hand shaking slightly. “I wasn’t sure what to do about setting your leg, or your wings, but… she’s got a bit more experience than I do. She’s big on herbal remedies and the like.”

“Look at you, trembling like a bird,” the angel mused, noting Crowley’s shaking hands, the ghost of a smile pulling at his lips. “You’d think I was going to smite you.”

Crowley gulped.

The angel’s expression softened. Taking one last long drag of the joint, he stubbed it out on the ashtray beside the bed, resting a hand over Crowley’s still shaking one afterward.

“I’m not going to smite you, my dear boy,” the angel assured him, giving his hand a squeeze. “I couldn’t if I wanted to, with my grace as weakened as it is – but I _don’t_ want to. Heaven only knows what could have become of me, had you not been here to offer your assistance…”

Sighing, the angel’s eyes took on a slightly dreamy, albeit _very stoned_ quality. “I owe you a great debt, and I haven’t even asked your name. You must forgive me. I’m not quite my usual self.”

“Anthony,” Crowley spoke up without thinking, his cheeks slightly pink as he added, “Well, sort of. It’s Anthony Crowley – but people usually just call me Crowley.”

“Is that a lawyer thing?” the angel asked, tilting his head, and Crowley shook his head.

“Don’t think so. People called me Crowley long before I became a lawyer. Before law school, even; truth be told, it probably started in primary school. There were two Anthony’s in my class in year one, so they took to calling the other one Anthony and I was Crowley. It stuck, I suppose.”

“Crowley,” the angel hummed, grinning as he added, “Like the bird.”

Cracking a small, amused smile, Crowley agreed, “Like the bird.”

A pointed knock at the cottage’s back door drew Crowley’s attention away from the angel’s stoned smile and pretty blue eyes, prompting him to let go of his hand and rise to his feet.

“That’ll be Anathema,” he explained, heading through the cottage to open the door. On the back deck where she stood in the doorway, Anathema Device looked stunned.

“I thought this was just your weird way of getting me to bring you more weed,” she remarked, shoving a bag into Crowley’s hands before pushing her way inside. Shutting the door, Crowley shook his head.

“Nope.”

“Your roses are ruined.”

“Yep.”

“The hydrangeas look positively shaken.”

“Mmhmm.”

“You said an _angel_ did all that?”

“Well, he didn’t do it on _purpose_ ,” Crowley sighed, scratching the back of his neck as he sat the brown paper bag of marijuana on the kitchen counter. “He… fell.”

“Where is he now, then?”

“Bedroom,” Crowley explained, gesturing for her to follow before pausing halfway down the hall, adding, “He’s… sort of stoned.”

“ _Stoned?_ ”

“Yes.”

“The _fallen angel_ is _stoned?_ ”

Crowley made a quiet, anxious noise in the affirmative before leading her into the bedroom.

The angel’s blue eyes widened when they walked into the room.

“Is this your friend?” he asked, his eyes glued to Anathema’s dark hair and disproportionately pretty face.

“Angel, this is Anathema Device,” Crowley explained, a tad awkwardly. “Anathema, this is… well, the angel.”

“Doesn’t he have a name?” Anathema asked, all the while gawking at the angel’s white, moulting, painfully bent wings. _Not about weed. Definitely not about weed. A real, actual angel. Go figure._

“Can’t remember it,” the angel supplied, giggling mindlessly before he exhaled a wistful sigh, musing, “Isn’t that odd? Rather inconvenient, not remembering one’s own name…”

Crowley sat on one side of the bed, smoothing the angel’s fluffy blond curls back in what he hoped was a slightly comforting gesture – because what else could he do, really, aside from making the angel comfortable? Then there was the matter of going back to work. He only had three days leave left before he was expected back in London and that would hardly be enough time for the angel to heal. He couldn’t just _leave_ him here, all alone…

Anathema rounded to the other side of the bed, hesitating only a moment longer before getting to work. She set about, with Crowley’s help, getting the angel out of his tattered clothes so the damage could properly be assessed, and then she forced Crowley to drive to town to fetch more bandages – _lots_ more bandages, along with plaster. The sun was beginning to rise by the time she was finished; the angel had his arm in a sling, his broken leg in a makeshift cast, and his wings set, splinted and bound in bandages to give them a fighting chance of healing properly. Thankfully, the angel was still high out of his mind by the end of it and didn’t have much of a chance to consider the ramifications of his wings _not_ healing properly. Unlike a human corporation, an angel was only ever granted one set of wings. They were bound to his soul and utterly irreplaceable.

“You need to sleep, too, you know,” Anathema stated as she prepared to leave, tidying up the mess they had made of the bedroom. There were moulted feathers all over the bed and the floor, and it was a rather pitiful sight. The angel had conked out again about twenty minutes prior.

Sighing, Crowley ran his hands over his face, staring at the unconscious angel, now clad in a faded Queen t-shirt and a pair of black silk pyjama pants. It was an odd picture, really; the dark colours looked strange on a being that, when he had first set eyes on it, radiated so much _light._ Aside from the bandaged wings, the angel almost looked human.

“I’m going to have to bring him back to London with me, somehow; keep him hidden in my flat until he can… I don’t know… fly away, be free, phone home – the whole cliché shebang? I’m running on film references and there aren’t enough films about angels falling in your garden. Only aliens, and these feel like two drastically different scenarios.”

“I could put him in my bike basket and see if we’d start to fly,” Anathema joked, and she grinned and patted Crowley’s arm. “Don’t worry so much. If angels are real – which they _very much seem to be_ – then that means… well, God’s real too, doesn’t it? There must be some sort of a Plan or something, so there must be a reason this angel fell in _your garden_ when he easily could’ve fallen in the woods somewhere, where nobody would’ve heard him. Maybe you’re meant to help him – or maybe he was meant to help you, and something got mucked up.”

“It’s not as though I can ask him, what with the inconvenient amnesia,” Crowley grumbled, pulling at his hair yet again. It was now sticking up at all angles, not at all resembling his usual, carefully coiffed style.

“Maybe it’s… I dunno…” Biting her lip thoughtfully, Anathema settled on, “Ineffable.”

“Ineffable?”

“Yeah. Ineffable. You’re not meant to understand _why_ an angel fell in your garden, you’re just supposed to… go with it.”

Frowning thoughtfully, Crowley muttered, “I suppose I don’t have much of a choice, do I?”

Truthfully, Crowley did have a choice; he always had a choice. He could’ve left the angel to die; he could have dragged it to die somewhere in the woods instead of in his garden; he could have called MI5 and let them handle the situation. He could have done any number of things, and all would have saved him an incredible amount of trouble. But Crowley was too kind to do anything like that, even if he’d never admit it – aloud, or to himself.

* * *

By sheer dumb luck, or maybe some bizarre ineffability, Crowley managed to get an additional four days tacked onto his vacation time, meaning he was able to spend a week, with Anathema’s help, nursing his injured angel back to some semblance of health. His cuts and scratches from the fall were beginning to heal; some were gone entirely, and he was in increasingly better spirits, all things considered.

Over the course of that week spent together in Crowley’s cozy-yet-chic South Downs cottage, Crowley learned a great deal about angels – or, at the very least, about this one angel in particular.

Angels, or this one angel in particular, loved books; while he was laid up in bed (leaving Crowley to reside on the couch), the angel poured through literally every book that he had, most of which had simply been bought for aesthetic or decorative purposes. He even begged Crowley to let him keep a particular Dickens first edition, although when Crowley agreed and then asked where he kept his own collection of books, the angel hadn’t been sure of the answer. He knew he had a collection, somewhere – a _wonderful, unparalleled collection_ – but he had no idea where it resided.

Angels, or this one angel in particular, also loved to eat, which was marvellous because Crowley loved to cook. He spent a great deal of time whipping up every comfort dish he knew how to prepare, from exquisite lobster bisque to a more traditional (but still exquisite) mac n’ cheese – and the angel, frequently stoned to stave off the discomfort of healing, ate it all with relish.

Angels, or this one angel in particular, _really_ loved wine. Crowley learned this on the last night that they spent together in the cottage before London expected him back at the office. They ate dinner together in the bedroom, the angel finally regaling to him the story of the time he smoked opium with Thomas De Quincey, and Crowley had listened, astonished, to every word. He was equal parts fascinated and flabbergasted. Fascinated because his angel was… well, _fascinating,_ but flabbergasted because an angel who smoked with the Opium Eater himself didn’t exactly make it any clearer whether he was fated for Heaven or doomed for Hell.

So, he’d cracked open an expensive vintage and poured them each a heady glass.

After drinking and talking well into the night, and getting into a rather heated argument about the mechanics of seahorse reproduction, Crowley had fallen asleep with his head pillowed on the angel’s good shoulder. It was the first night he’d slept in his own bed since he decided to take the angel in. The angel, who was needing less and less sleep the more he healed, simply smiled at the sweet, lanky, sleeping human who was curled against his side and lifted the covers to tuck him in.

While Crowley had started to inwardly think of the angel as _his_ angel, given their circumstances, the angel had also begun to think of Crowley as _his_ human. They’d been forced upon each other, in a way, and sometimes all that one needs to form an attachment is a little _push_ , Heavenly or otherwise.

The angel still couldn’t remember what had caused his fall, nor could he remember his name, nor could he remember where he’d been coming from or where he was headed to. He was surprised to realize that, despite the discomfort he was still experiencing, he wasn’t entirely regretful that he fell.

If he had to fall from the sky, he was glad that he fell into Anthony J. Crowley’s garden.

* * *

“There’s food in the fridge if you get hungry.”

“I know, my dear.”

“And there are books on all the shelves and records and cassettes in my office if you get tired of reading-”

“Unlikely, but thank you.”

“-and the television remote is here, on the coffee table, if you can figure it out-”

“I doubt I’ll feel the urge.”

“-and my number is written on the pad by the phone. If you need anything, _anything at all_ , just call me and I’ll come home straight away. I mean it, angel; straight away.”

“My dear boy, _really_ ,” the angel sighed, leaning against a crutch that Crowley had procured from a neighbour when they arrived in Mayfair yesterday. Thankfully, the angel had healed enough to be capable of tucking his wings into the indiscernible celestial plane; it had made getting into the elevator and up to Crowley’s flat a much more inconspicuous endeavour. Right now, the angel’s wings were still concealed from view and Crowley was once again struck by just how _human_ he looked.

After taking a day to get the angel settled into his flat, Crowley had no choice but to go into work today – which meant leaving the angel all alone, entirely unattended, for the first time since he found him, crumpled in his garden. It was terribly unsettling, which Crowley made clear by the way he was anxiously swinging his key ring around his finger. His anxiety dissipated slightly – _very_ slightly – when the angel touched his cheek.

“I’m doing much better, thanks to you and dear Anathema. I can manage a few hours on my own. It may do me some good to be alone with my thoughts; perhaps some things will come back to me.”

Crowley knew that the angel was right, but that didn’t mean he had to like it. Begrudgingly, and with a reminder to call should anything go wrong, he left the flat to drive to his posh, painfully distant office on the other side of town.

Left alone in the flat, after hobbling over to the couch to read, the angel found that being alone with his thoughts _was_ helpful. London felt familiar; he’d known it from the moment Crowley drove them into the city. It wasn’t just from his distant, Victorian memories; he’d been here _recently_ . Not in this part of London, per se, but… still. He had some sort of a… _connection_ to London in general.

Had he been coming back here? To London? Had that been his destination when something knocked him off course and sent him tumbling into Crowley’s roses and hydrangeas? It felt like a strong possibility, but everything was still so terribly _fuzzy_. Finding that attempting to pull memories to the surface was giving him a headache, Aziraphale sat his book aside and curled up on the couch, shutting his eyes. For the umpteenth time since he fell, he slept.

Only, this time, he dreamed.

* * *

The angel Aziraphale was a Principality, a guardian to all of God’s creatures, and an introverted bookworm who revelled in uninterrupted peace and quiet. He loved his bookshop in Soho, but the issue with running a book _shop_ was that people felt they had the right to _shop_ there, even if the ‘closed’ sign was very prominently on display in the window. They would bang on the door to inquire about his operating hours, which would inevitably interrupt whatever book he had been reading at the time even if he had no intention of letting the insistent shopper(s) in. So, sometimes, Aziraphale felt the need to retire to the country, where no pesky customers could pester him.

There was a kind little old lady who ran an inn in South Downs, and that was typically his destination when he felt the overpowering urge to seclude himself even more totally than he tended to do in his bookshop’s backroom. The inn was Victorian, and the room he liked to commandeer had a quaint little fireplace and a plush, tartan armchair. With the innkeeper’s excellent hot cocoa ready-upon-request, the place was as close to Paradise that Aziraphale had felt since the destruction of Eden so, so many years ago.

He’d been coming here for nearly thirty years; it had always felt like a safe place. He _loved_ being there, and perhaps that was his greatest mistake – for the love of an angel is a powerful thing, and it can serve as a beacon to anyone who knows what to look for.

When Aziraphale opened the door to his room, suspecting that the knock he had heard was the innkeeper bringing the cocoa he had asked for, the last thing he had expected was to be stabbed in the stomach by an unfamiliar man with eyes that were entirely black in their sockets, a tangle of brown hair, and a sinister smile. He gave the knife a twist and Aziraphale realized, with horror, that it _burned_.

 _Forged in Hellfire. Not good, not good, very very not good,_ were the thoughts running through his head as he took a step back, effectively pulling himself off of the blade – which _hurt_ – and nearly tripping over his own feet in the process.

“You’re very noisy, y’know,” the demon declared in a cockney accent, blinking its blank, black eyes while it continued to smirk. “Could hear your _love_ an’ smell all that _grace_ from miles away. What’d’ya think killin’ a Principality’ll get me down in Hell, eh? Quite the commendation, I ‘spect.”

Aziraphale had sprung backwards with panic when the demon lunged at him – effectively sending himself smashing through the window (which he _had_ liked reading by so _very_ much) and plunging toward the ground. It was pure instinct which prompted him to unfurl his wings and take to the sky – and he realized, with relief, that the demon was unable to follow. An underling, then; a human soul that had been damned and gained demonic status. A tyrannical fiend, but with no wings to speak of. Only Fallen angels had wings.

As he flew, largely on autopilot, he thought repeatedly to himself that if he could just get back to London, he’d be alright. He could contact Heaven and let them know that he had been attacked, and everything would be fine. Everything would be fine. _Everything would be fine._

But his head was spinning, and his ears were ringing, and the burning pain in his stomach was making it nearly impossible to fly straight. Pressing a hand to his belly and raising it to inspect in the moonlight, Aziraphale exhaled a choked sound to see his fingers soaked with blood – his own blood. He could already feel his grace working to heal the wound, but it was a difficult task; the blade had been forged in Hellfire, which would have killed him instantly if the demon had been smart enough to go for the heart. It would not just have discorporated him – it would have destroyed his angelic soul, reducing it to nothing. As of right now, the poison was simply seeping his grace away, which meant it had to work harder to heal the wound, which meant it _hurt_ that much more, which meant concentrating on flying was next to impossible.

He didn’t realize until he was tumbling downward and crashing through the trees, his wings being terribly battered in the process, that he was falling.

He was already unconscious by the time he hit the ground.

* * *

When the angel awoke in Crowley’s flat, he did so with a strangled sob. It had been in his head all along, then – the memories of what happened. His brain had just been holding them hostage, perhaps as a defense mechanism. The mere _thought_ of the Hellfire wound made his stomach churn as though it were filled with flames; he could feel it, now that the memory of receiving the wound was fresh. He could feel the little drop of poison still inside of him that his grace hadn’t been able to vanquish; he could feel that little drop of poison leeching his angelic grace even now, keeping him from healing himself entirely – keeping him from _shining._

It wasn’t enough to kill him, but it was enough to keep him cut off from Heaven. He was tainted.

_Perhaps that had been Hell’s intention all along. The ultimate revenge for his thwarting their wiles on Earth for all these years. Not death – not damnation – but isolation. He was an angel, moored from God’s love and healing light. He was lost._

Moaning pitifully, the angel – _Aziraphale_ , he remembered – clutched his stomach and wept. He’d come so far, with Crowley’s help and kindness; his body was almost completely restored, despite his horrific fall, and he’d been _happy_. Now he just felt ill. Terribly, horribly ill.

Crowley unlocked and opened the door to his flat just in time to hear Aziraphale retching in the living room, the sound mingled with agonized sobs. Panic instantly washed through him and he dropped his keys on the floor, along with the box of cupcakes he had grabbed on his way back from the office, and bolted toward the noise.

“ _Angel?!_ ” he shouted, skidding into the room and feeling his tan skin turn pale at the sight before him. Aziraphale was clutching his stomach and trembling, worse even than he had on that first night, and tears were streaming down his cheeks. He’d vomited over the side of the couch, staining and likely ruining the white rug on the floor, but Crowley didn’t care, he didn’t _care._ What he cared about was the sight of his angel, curling in on himself on the sofa and shaking, looking more broken than ever despite how well he had looked mere hours ago. Hurrying forward and dropping to his knees on the floor, Crowley brought his hands to Aziraphale’s face, anxiously wiping the tears from his clammy cheeks as his panic increased.

“What happened?” he asked in a rush, his hands fluttering in an anxious flurry over Aziraphale’s body, trying to ascertain what could be causing him so much pain. Finally, they came to rest atop the angel’s own hands, which were shaking as they rested over his stomach. Gently pushing his hands away, Crowley pushed up the hem of the white sweater the angel was wearing; when they arrived in Mayfair, Crowley had made a point of buying some proper, comfortable clothes for him. Clothes that he would like; clothes that would make him happy. He didn’t look happy now, though; he looked utterly miserable and Crowley couldn’t, for the life of him, figure out why – because there was nothing discernibly wrong with him. Despite the agony written all over Aziraphale’s face and shining in his sparkling tears, his body looked exactly as it had that morning when Crowley had left.

His stomach, which appeared to be the source of his pain, looked perfectly fine; the skin, soft and chubby, looked normal. The only abnormality was the small scar that Crowley had noticed the first time he helped the unconscious angel change out of his bloody clothes, but it looked no different now than it had then. The sight of it, however, made Aziraphale sob even harder.

“Angel,” Crowley whispered, his brown eyes pained; he didn’t know what to do. Dealing with the angel’s physical injuries had been relatively simple with Anathema’s help, but pain with no obvious cause? He felt useless. Shifting, he pushed himself off of the floor and up onto the couch where Aziraphale was laying and gently pulled the angel into his arms. Aziraphale instantly curled into Crowley’s chest, clutching at his shirt as he shook and whimpered.

Lifting a hand to tenderly run it through his blond hair, Crowley held Aziraphale tighter and spoke to him in tones as gentle as he could manage – but his voice still wavered with clear anxiety. He didn’t know what to do, he didn’t know what to do, _he didn’t know what to do…_

“Angel, I can’t help unless you tell me what’s wrong,” he insisted, holding Aziraphale close as if that would do some sort of good. It was all he _could_ do, for the moment. “What is it? What’s wrong?”

Still clutching Crowley’s shirt, Aziraphale exhaled another miserable moan, continuing to tremble in Crowley’s arms as he whispered, “I _remember_.”

Crowley was reasonably perplexed. Wasn’t that what the angel had wanted? To remember who he was and how he fell? Why would that be causing him so much _pain?_

“I don’t…” he began, trying to profess his lack of understanding, but the angel wasn’t finished.

“I was staying at an inn not far from your cottage, and I… I was _attacked._ A demon found me, and it stabbed me with a Hellfire blade, and…”

Tears flooding his eyes again, the angel choked out a pained sound as his hand came to cover the scar, his body shuddering all over. Crowley’s eyes widened with shock.

“ _That’s_ where it stabbed you? But that… that’s been a _scar_ since the night you fell! I _saw_ it-”

“My grace managed to heal it,” Aziraphale muttered, sounding thoroughly agonized, “but not entirely.”

Crowley, if possible, turned a few shades paler and his grip on the angel tightened.

“What do you mean, ‘not entirely’? It’s a scar, it’s healed, it’s… You look _fine_ …”

“It’s in my blood, dear boy,” Aziraphale whispered, still trembling. “Hellfire is… It’s like venom. It seeps, and it burns, and it _poisons._ If used properly, it kills.”

Crowley made a horrified little noise. Aziraphale snivelled.

“It… It’s not going to _kill me_ , but it’s still _inside of me_. I can feel it, leaching away my grace. Draining what makes me an angel.” Looking rather like a wilted flower, he whispered, “I can’t feel Heaven so long as it’s in my blood, and Heaven can’t feel me.”

Crowley’s arms tightened again. He was quiet for a long while, just holding his angel, at a complete loss for words. There was nothing that he could do to help; not this time. He was only human, and his angel would need someone far more powerful than him to restore what had been taken from him. Finally, he whispered, “Angel, I’m so sorry.”

“Aziraphale.”

“What?” Crowley asked, his brow furrowing, and the angel spoke again.

“My name – it’s Aziraphale. I remembered that, too. I was coming back here when I fell – to London. I’ve got a bookshop in Soho.”

Pausing, Crowley stayed quiet for a moment before he asked, “A.Z. Fell’s? The place that’s been there my entire life but I’ve never once seen open?”

“You know it, then?” Aziraphale whispered, surprised. All these years, Crowley had just been a stone’s throw away. Perhaps he’d even knocked on his door once or twice out of curiosity. Aziraphale couldn’t help wondering if he would have been one of the rare exceptions that he allowed to come in, or if he would have ignored him like everyone else.

“Of course I know it,” Crowley stated, stroking Aziraphale’s blond hair. “When I was a kid, it was like the troll bridge in that fairy tale about the goats; everyone used to say that there was a little old man who lived inside and dressed like a Victorian ghost and that he never let anybody in. We all thought it was haunted, really; couldn’t figure out any other reason why it was never sold and turned into something newer.”

After a few moments, Crowley laughed. Aziraphale was blushing, the gesture adding a bit of colour back to his pale face.

“What? What’s so funny?” he asked, sniffing – more out of indignity than misery this time around.

“It’s just… It turns out it _was_ haunted, all this time – just by a cranky angel who doesn’t like sharing his books instead of a ghost.”

“ _Well,_ I…”

Pursing his lips, Aziraphale sniffed again. Then he huffed. Then, despite his better judgement, he giggled – and then he _laughed._

“Oh,” he sighed, curling against Crowley’s chest and gently smoothing down his tie, “I suppose it is a bit funny, isn’t it? Children thinking I’m a _ghost_. Perhaps I’ll use that to my advantage; if people think the shop’s haunted, maybe they’ll stop pestering me to come in and buy things.”

“Doubtful,” Crowley mused, gently rubbing Aziraphale’s back. His pain, which appeared to have been more emotional than physical, seemed to have eased slightly. “If word gets out that your shop’s haunted, you’ll start getting ghost hunters knocking on your door and I can guarantee they’ll be more of a nuisance than a few customers.”

Heaving a heavy sigh, Aziraphale pressed his cheek to Crowley’s chest, just over his heart, and muttered, “ _Blast._ ”

Cracking a small, fond smile, Crowley held Aziraphale close as the angel listened to his heart beating; it was a comfortable moment, all things considered. After a few more measured moments of silence, he whispered, “You’re not alone, y’know.”

“What was that, my dear?” Aziraphale asked, peeking up at his human, and Crowley lifted a hand to gently cup his cheek.

“I said that you’re not alone,” he insisted, brushing his thumb over the angel’s soft skin. “Even if you can’t feel Heaven… well, you can feel me. Er, that is, you can _have_ me – that is, I just mean, you’ve got _me_. You’re not alone ‘cause you’ve got me.” Blushing, he mumbled, “I care about you.”

Listening to Crowley’s endearing little speech, Aziraphale felt his heart warm. The poor boy, babbling as he was, looked utterly precious. He was utterly darling. He was _everything -_

\- and, it would appear, he was all that Aziraphale had. It didn’t exactly feel like something he needed to complain about; instead, it felt like a gift.

“My dear boy,” he whispered, every syllable laced with prominent affection as he smiled, warmth flooding from his heart throughout his entire corporation, “I care about you, too. Quite a lot.”

Blushing even more, Crowley grinned faintly as he continued to babble.

“Good. That is, I’m glad – glad that you care. Not that I would’ve _stopped_ caring if you didn’t, but I, y’know, I just… _ngh_.”

Crowley only relaxed when Aziraphale, giggling, leaned into his arms further and closed his eyes, utterly comfortable and content. Had his eyes been open, perhaps Crowley would have been able to point out that the angel’s eyes were shining a tad brighter than they had been earlier that morning – as if a light had been restored behind them.

 **-** **_Two Years Later -_ **

Aziraphale was curled up in the backroom of his bookshop with a heavy tome of _The Complete Works of William Shakespeare_ lying open in his lap when he heard a sound – a sound that, not very long ago, would have made him groan and roll his eyes behind his gold-rimmed spectacles.

It was the sound of someone at the door.

Now, however, the sound of a key turning in the lock and the jingling of the bell above the door didn’t cause him any irritation; instead, it made him smile.

“Angel?”

Yet another sound that made him smile was the sound of Crowley’s voice, and he felt a wash of warmth run through him in response to it – a reaction that, even after only two years, felt deeply ingrained in his very being.

“Back here, dearheart,” he called, smiling brightly when Crowley’s footsteps approached and he poked his head into the backroom. He was bundled up against the cold winter evening outside, wearing a black pea coat, a thick grey scarf, leather driving gloves, and black sunglasses to defend his eyes against the effects of driving into the sunset. There were snowflakes melting in his dark hair and his cheeks were flushed red.

“Oh, you _do_ look cold. Don’t tell me you walked here?” Aziraphale asked, setting his book aside to rise to his feet, walking over and cupping Crowley’s cheeks. They were cold to the touch and his human responded almost immediately, coiling his arms around the angel’s middle and leaning his forehead against his in an effort to leach some warmth. Aziraphale’s breath felt warm and comforting against his face.

“Had to park a few streets over. I know you hate customers, angel, but would putting a parking space in front of the shop _really_ be so bad?”

Tutting gently, Aziraphale shifted to press warm, lingering kisses to each of Crowley’s cold cheeks before pulling him over to the sofa and sitting him down, wrapping a blanket around his shoulders before sitting beside him and pulling him over into a warm embrace.

“I’ve told you, my dear; parking would suggest a welcoming atmosphere, which is not the impression I wish to give off.”

“Not even to me?” Crowley asked, nuzzling his cold nose against the angel’s neck, and Aziraphale chuckled, nuzzling his own nose into Crowley’s damp hair.

“You’re the only exception, my dear boy. Tell me, how was work?”

Groaning even as he shivered, Crowley pressed a kiss to the base of Aziraphale’s throat before heaving a sigh, closing his eyes as his sunglasses slipped down his nose.

“Miserable. They’ve had me on desk duty ever since I lost that last case, and all I could hear all day long was Hastur and Ligur bragging about how _splendidly_ their bet is coming along. Evidently, Hastur has now set _thirty-four_ murderers free to keep on murdering while Ligur has only managed to free twenty-nine. Even shutting my office door wouldn’t drown them out.”

Cooing softly, Aziraphale kissed the top of Crowley’s head, holding him close.

“They’re still convinced you threw that last case on purpose, then?”

Grumbling under his breath, Crowley muttered, “Mmmhm.”

“And did you?” Aziraphale asked, gently toying with Crowley’s hair. “Throw it on purpose?”

Falling quiet for a long moment, Crowley blushed for reasons entirely unrelated to the cold and mumbled, “The man killed his wife. Their nine-year-old daughter saw it happen. There was no way in Hell that I was just going to… to help him _get off._ He would’ve gotten custody of the girls, and there’s no telling what might’ve happened then, and I-”

Aziraphale cut Crowley off by pressing a tender kiss to his lips. Relaxing when the angel’s lips touched his, Crowley sighed and lifted a gloved hand to cup Aziraphale’s cheek, kissing him back with a bit more heat. When, moments later, his lips started travelling down Aziraphale’s throat, the angel sighed blissfully and whispered, “You’re such a _good_ person, my dear.”

Blushing, Crowley paused his kisses and mumbled against Aziraphale’s skin, “I’m not.”

“No, no; I suppose you’re right,” Aziraphale hummed, tipping his head back against the tartan couch cushions as Crowley’s kisses continued. A moment later he added, “You’re the _best_ person.”

Snorting, Crowley nipped at Aziraphale’s neck and muttered, “You’re only saying that because I’m the only person you like.”

Aziraphale giggled at the truth behind those words before he cut himself off, shaking his head and moving to push Crowley down onto his back on the couch. Crowley’s breath hitched with surprise when the angel shifted to lie on top of him, gently pinning his wrists near his head.

“No, my dear boy,” he whispered, sincerity shining behind his polished spectacles, “I’m saying that because I honestly believe it to be true. Your kindness, and your thoughtfulness, and your selflessness and bravery never cease to amaze me…” Nudging his nose against Crowley’s, he whispered, “I do believe those are among the many reasons why I fell in love with you.”

Blushing properly now, his pupils blown wide and his sunglasses askew, Crowley whispered, “Still can’t believe you love me to begin with. You’re an _angel,_ and I’m-”

“-more angelic than I could ever hope to be,” Aziraphale finished for him, pressing a gentle finger to Crowley’s lips to silence him. “Hush, now; I won’t have you slandering the love of my life.”

Quirking his lips up against Aziraphale’s finger, Crowley exhaled a noise that strongly resembled a giggle, mumbling, “That’s a very long time, angel.”

“Over six-thousand years, dear boy,” Aziraphale agreed, gently caressing Crowley’s cheek when he drew his finger back. “Over six-thousand years, and in all that time I never once felt as much love for anything or anyone as I feel for you.”

“Angel-”

“No, Crowley; I mean it. It’s the truth.”

“Yes, but _angel-_ ”

“Every single word of it is the truth. I love you, my dear boy, with every inch of my heart. I love you so much that, at times, I can barely _breathe,_ regardless of whether or not I need to; I need you like humans need air. I love you-”

“Angel, _please-_ ”

“-and I’ll shout it from the rooftops if I must. I love you with a _burning intensity_ that’s even brighter than the sun, and-”

“ _Angel!_ ” Crowley shouted, reaching his hands up and resting one on Aziraphale’s cheek while the other came up to cover his mouth, effectively silencing his proclamations of adoration. Aziraphale made a disgruntled little noise, only for his eyes to widen when Crowley explained, “You’re _glowing._ ”

It was only then that Aziraphale noticed that, yes, the room _did_ seem a bit brighter, and he could see light reflecting off of the black lenses of Crowley’s sunglasses. Removing his hand from the angel’s mouth, Crowley reached up to push his sunglasses up to properly cover his eyes; the light was getting brighter, _whiter_ , and it was almost enough to hurt his mortal gaze. Humans were never supposed to see an angel shine at its full potential; only in death did they ever witness such a thing.

“ _Oh_ ,” Aziraphale gasped, his voice cracking as he sat up, trembling with shock as he examined his own hands. Well-manicured and moisturized daily to a perfect softness, Aziraphale realized that they were shining, radiating a holy light that he’d felt disconnected from ever since he woke up in Crowley’s garden, battered and bruised. Rising to his feet and crossing the room, one look in the reflective glass of one of the backroom’s antique cupboards confirmed that his hair had brightened from the faded blond it had been for the past few years into a heavenly gold, and his eyes were bluer than Crowley had ever seen them. Unfurling his wings, he lifted a hand to stroke the feathers, choking out a sob of unspeakable relief when they weren’t the dull, faded white of a dove’s wings, but instead the brilliant, indescribable white of an _angel’s_. Somehow, his grace had been restored; something had burned up those last few drops of Hellfire poison coursing through his veins, restoring him completely. Truthfully, Aziraphale felt that he was shining far brighter than he ever had, even before he fell.

Crowley, slowly sitting up on the sofa, felt nothing short of awe. He’d seen his angel glow, in those brief moments before he woke up in agony, but it had been nothing like this. That glow, while still ethereal, had been significantly diminished and was seeping away. _This_ glow? It was brighter, purer than all of the stars in the night sky, and it left him completely breathless. Finally, the words escaping almost of their own volition, he whispered, “You’re _beautiful_.”

Turning to face Crowley, his human, his wonderfully _wonderful_ human, Aziraphale smiled brighter – and he _shone_ even brighter. With a breathless laugh of his own, his heart singing, the angel realized what his saving grace had been.

It was _Crowley._ Crowley had saved his life by helping him that night and nursing him back to health, but he saved his _grace_ by _loving_ him. Crowley loved him, and Aziraphale loved Crowley with the kind of intensity that only angels are capable of – and the Hellfire poison in his blood was no match for that kind of ethereal love. It boiled away until there was nothing left at all, because love is patient, love is kind, and love _heals._

“My dear Crowley,” Aziraphale whispered, blinking back shimmering tears, his eyelashes damp with them. “My dearheart, my darling – my _love._ ”

Rushing forward, Aziraphale crashed into Crowley in a tumble of chubby limbs and feathers, and his incredible human gathered the angel up in his arms to the best of his ability, accepting the shower of kisses being bestowed upon him with an astonished chuckle.

“My _hero_ ,” Aziraphale breathed, his glow enveloping them both, and Crowley realized, as he held his angel in his arms, that any cold lingering in his bones was entirely banished by Aziraphale’s grace – by his _love._

He’d never felt warmer in his life.

* * *

Unfortunately, there are some things that even angelic grace cannot heal - but Aziraphale would be damned if he didn’t try.

He and Crowley carried on in bliss for nearly thirty years after Aziraphale regained his connection to Heaven; they travelled the world, ate good food, drank good wine, and made love in the dark with Aziraphale’s wings wrapped around them both, his glow and his warmth far more addictive than anything else Crowley had ever experienced.

On his sixty-fourth birthday, Aziraphale’s human found his first grey hair mixed in with the rest of his dark tresses. As it would turn out, being the object of ethereal love did wonders for maintaining one’s youth and beauty.

It did not, however, safeguard one against disease. Three months after his sixty-fourth birthday, Crowley was diagnosed with rapidly accelerating cancer. One day he felt fine, and the next morning he was vomiting blood into the pearly-white sink of a hotel room in Venice.

Every day after that saw him steadily growing worse. He was wasting away before Aziraphale’s very eyes.

The love of his life, his dearheart, his _everything…_ was dying.

He’d known it would happen eventually, of course; Crowley was mortal, and mortals had relatively short lifespans. He had hoped, however, that they would have at least another twenty years together before he lost him.

It wasn’t right. It wasn’t _fair._ He sent messages up to Heaven, pleading with Raphael for help - for surely if any archangel could save Crowley’s life, it would have been Heaven’s resident healer – but Raphael had responded, regretfully, that his hands were tied. He could not heal a soul that was afflicted with the pain of natural death; it was simply his time to come home. Such was God’s will.

And so, six months after his sixty-fourth birthday, Crowley was dead.

Crowley was dead, and Aziraphale was in agony. He wept shimmering tears over his lover’s body, wasted and waned as it was; he clutched his hands and his shoulders, and he kissed his face, and he desperately willed life back into him, but nothing would work. Nothing would silence that steady, lifeless beep resonating from the machinery that had been hooked up to Crowley for the final months of his life.

As he sobbed and cradled Crowley to him, his soul already flown in one direction or the other, Aziraphale screamed with pain and fury that shook the hospital’s foundation. The only thought that rushed through his mind was, **_Fuck_ ** _God._

 _Fuck God, and fuck His_ **_Plan,_ ** _and fuck His divine will. This wasn’t right. This was_ **_wrong._ ** _Crowley didn’t deserve this, he_ **_didn’t._ ** _He deserved to grow old,_ **_properly_ ** _old, and to die comfortably in his sleep._ **_Comfortably._ ** _He didn’t deserve to die in pain and in misery. Not after the kindness he had shown and all the good that he had done._

**_This was wrong._ **

Trembling, glaring defiantly up past the ceiling and the clouds and the atmosphere to the Heavens above where He resided, Aziraphale screamed, “ ** _Fuck you!_** ” - and with a burning that made being stabbed with a Hellfire blade seem like a papercut, the angel Fell.

* * *

Nothing was the same, afterward. It quite literally couldn’t be, not only because Aziraphale had Fallen from grace, but because the Fall takes the vast majority of one’s Heavenly memories with it. After all, Heaven couldn’t have Fallen angels divulging all of their secrets to Hell once they crashed through the gates. That would make for a rather terrible system.

There were a few things that Aziraphale _did_ remember – harmless things that could cause Heaven no trouble. Among them were his bookshop in Soho, which he eventually returned to once Hell inevitably sent him back up top, deciding to use his knowledge of the Earth to their advantage; likewise, he maintained his memories of the Earth, for Heaven had no influence over them; and he remembered Crowley. His dear, darling, wonderful Crowley. How could he ever forget the reason that he Fell? It still made him tremble with rage that rivalled Satan’s own to think of the pain that Crowley had suffered before the disease stole him away forever.

Among the things that he _didn’t_ remember was his own name. Angels rarely maintained their previous monikers after Falling; an angelic name was a relic of Heaven, and thus the property of Heaven. If a professor of Communications were to learn about the nature of Falling, they would remark that God has copyright over the names that He bestows upon His angels; therefore, Hell has no right to use them.  

During the years that he spent in the pit, surrounded by Hellfire and pain, the angel-formerly-known-as-Aziraphale became the-demon-presently-known-as-Ezra. It was a wicked name, Beelzebub had insisted; it positively _buzzed_ with wicked potential. As the demon was a Fallen angel as well, the-angel-formerly-known-as-Aziraphale had trusted its judgement and adopted his new name without a fuss. He didn’t care much, to be frank about it; in those early days, even the greatest tortures inflicted by Hell had seemed small in comparison to his own grief. Crowley’s loss still stung and tugged at his heartstrings, making him a pillar of misery, regret, and anger. He fit in well among Satan’s inner circle because of it. The only thing that brought him comfort was that he never saw Crowley’s name anywhere on the lists of souls scheduled for torture. That meant he didn’t tumble down; instead, he ascended.

It wasn’t until Ezra was sent topside again and was finally able to return to his shop that he realized just how much he had changed, for there were no mirrors in Hell. He realized, staring into that same reflective glass of the cupboard in his backroom, that there was no brilliance about his corporation any longer; his hair had transformed with his Fall, turning from golden blond to a deep black, as if his tresses had maintained the soot of the fire that burned him as he Fell; his eyes, once such a pure and bright blue, were now dull and jaded; and his wings, while not black, had faded to a dull grey. He was glad for the changes, really; his corporation now reflected precisely how he felt on the inside – dull and darkened.

For the next ten years, Ezra made an absolute nuisance of himself. He mucked about with traffic lights during rush hour; he glued coins to the sidewalk throughout London; he caused massive privacy breaches and password leaks in online banking programs; and, when he grew particularly bored, he would whisper suggestions into the ears of software developers for unnecessary and entirely unhelpful social media app updates. His life was utterly miserable; why shouldn’t everyone else’s be?

Of course, he never did anything _extremely_ terrible; no one ever _died_ at Ezra’s hands. They were maimed, at the very worst, or tremendously inconvenienced, but they were never killed. He couldn’t bear the thought of inflicting the pain that loss caused upon anyone else, regardless of the fact that he was now a demon and inflicting pain was supposed to be his ‘thing’. Over a decade later, losing Crowley still haunted him.

Sometimes, he thought that he could still hear his voice. He would wake up from a particularly long depression nap and feel like Crowley had whispered in his ear, or he would be mending a first edition of some book or another in the bookshop’s backroom and think that Crowley had called his name. It was only ever the wind, though; he would glance around the dark bedroom above the shop and find it painfully empty, or he would dash out of the backroom and weave through the shelves of the shop, searching for the source of the voice, but there was never anybody there. Crowley was never there.

Crowley was gone, and all that was left of him were phantom pain and the wisps of memory. Every time it happened, Ezra would curl in on himself and remember how Crowley used to hold him in that old bed with the terrible tartan quilt; he would remember the way that Crowley had bemoaned how hideous it was and how he had begged repeatedly for it to be replaced, only to happily curl up beneath it every night anyway. Crowley had always run cold, for a human, and – ugly as it may have been – the tartan quilt was warm.

Every time it happened, he would remember being held, or being pushed up against a bookshelf and soundly snogged, or the way Crowley’s lips had felt, brushing beneath his ear while he sat at the counter, diligently doing his taxes. Crowley had always, _always_ wanted attention, and his angel had been all too happy to indulge him.

Oh, what Ezra would have given to indulge his human just once more. To hold him, and kiss him, and tell him how _loved_ he was – how loved he _still_ was.

Ezra didn’t believe in ghosts; he saw firsthand where tortured souls ended up after death. That didn’t, however, stop him from feeling Crowley’s presence wherever he went.

Thus, when he thought he heard the tinkling of the bell above the bookshop’s door, along with a set of familiar footsteps, he shuddered and did his best to ignore it, focusing intently on the book in his lap. He’d stopped checking long ago; it only hurt him to find the place empty. He always felt painfully alone afterward, and the feeling lingered.

“ _Aziraphale?_ ”

Ezra’s breath hitched and a few tears fell onto the pages of his book. He didn’t recognize the name that had echoed from the shop, but _that voice…_ That voice still echoed in his mind and clung to his every thought.

“ _Aziraphale, are you here? Angel, we… er, that is, I suppose you’re not a… well… Listen, we need to talk, and – oh._ ”

Ezra sprang up from the sofa, his book clattering to the floor, and he took several frightened steps backward, his wings unfurling with shock. He’d heard Crowley’s voice, countless times, but he’d never _seen_ him. Yet, here he was, walking into the backroom as if he’d never been gone at all.

“You can’t be here,” the demon choked out, staggering backward until his back – and his grey wings – ran into one of his cupboards. “You’re… You’re _dead_ … I held you while you died, I watched the life leave your eyes, I…”

He was crying. He could feel the tears rolling down his cheeks, his body shaking, his breathing growing ragged. Not just crying, then – sobbing. Sobbing as he had right before he Fell. _What was this? Some sort of cruel punishment that Heaven had spent all these years devising? Kicking him out wasn’t punishment enough for spurning the Lord?_

“Aziraphale-”

“Stop _saying_ that!” Ezra gasped out, desperately, through his sobs; the name felt like it was mocking him, somehow. He’d never heard it before in his life, he was sure of that, and yet it felt significant, especially falling from those lips. Those beautiful, familiar lips…

Although, something was off. If this was Heaven’s idea of a punishment, they’d done a rubbish job at perfecting the details; this version of Crowley looked different than the human he kept in his mind like a cherished relic. Heaven’s version of Crowley didn’t have dark hair; it was a light brown, so light that it was nearly ginger. His eyes weren’t the warm, golden brown that Ezra remembered, either, and were instead darker, richer – like melted chocolate. Heaven’s version of Crowley was… _warmer_ , somehow.

That’s when it hit him. This was _Heaven’s version_ of Crowley – not as in a pale caricature sent down to torture him, but as in the _angelic_ version. His hair was lighter, his eyes were warmer, and he’d never looked more peaceful – or more _beautiful_ . Stumbling into the nearest armchair, Ezra gasped out, “You’re an angel. They… They _made you an angel_ …”

In the six thousand years that Ezra had spent in Heaven, and from what little he recalled of it, Heaven had only given human souls angelic grace a handful of times. Especially virtuous martyrs sometimes rose up, but the acts of virtue that they performed had to be _exceptional._

Ezra was still trembling when Crowley strode forward to kneel at his feet, resting gentle – and _warm_ – hands on his knees. The feeling, so _real,_ so _palpable_ , made the demon choke on another sob.

“They called it my reward,” he whispered, pain etched upon his angelic, angular features, “for what I did when you fell into my garden. For giving you aid, and… for helping you reclaim your grace. It was Raphael’s idea; he said that I had the healing touch of an angel, and that…” Swallowing roughly, Crowley finished, “…that my dying young was God calling an angel home.”

“Raphael,” Ezra muttered, rather miserably. So the archangel _had_ helped him, in the end.

Crowley was just as miserable; perhaps more. He was taking in the sight of Ezra before him – black hair, bleak eyes, and faded wings – and he looked pained.

“I Ascended, and you Fell,” he whispered, tightening his grasp on Ezra’s knees. Shuddering, the demon lifted his well-manicured hands to his face and hid behind them. What sort of sick joke was this? He’d _begged_ for Heaven’s help when faced with Crowley’s death, and they couldn’t have given him some sort of indication of what awaited him up above? It was as if God wanted him to turn his back on Heaven – as if this was all part of the _Plan._ Ezra shuddered again and exhaled a choked, broken sound. He’d been a good angel, up until that moment; how could God be so cruel?

As he hid his face, in shame and in agony, Ezra felt Crowley slide onto the armchair beside him, his body still as slim as an angel as it had been when he was human. The angel and the demon fit perfectly together on that ugly tartan armchair, just as the human and the angel had. When Crowley’s arms wrapped around him, one hand sliding into his black hair while the other pressed gently to his back, between his wings, Ezra melted into him. He buried his face into the crook of Crowley’s neck and let himself fall apart for the first time since he Fell. He let himself feel all of the pain and the loss and the rejection profoundly; he let his soul bleed as it had never bled before.

Holding him tightly, as if it might make a difference, Crowley whispered, “Aziraphale, I…”

“Please,” Ezra begged, his voice broken as the tears, dull and ordinary, streamed down his cheeks. “ _Please_ , stop _calling_ me that.”

After a beat of silence, Crowley whispered, “…but it’s your name.”

Ezra felt his breath hitch. So _that_ was why it felt significant despite not resonating in his memory at all. _The Fall had rendered him unable to even recognize his own God-given name._ His cheek pressed to Crowley’s chest, the demon brokenly whispered, “Not anymore.”

Opening his mouth to respond, Crowley shut it again just as quickly, unable to think of a single thing to say. Nothing would make this better. Nothing could change the fact that God had allowed the-angel-formerly-known-as-Aziraphale to feel so utterly hopeless when he’d already been in such profound pain as it was. Nothing could ease the burn on his soul that still smarted.

His Fall couldn’t be reversed and, at this point, Ezra wasn’t so sure that he wanted it to be.

“What do they call you?” Crowley finally asked, what felt like hours later.

The demon in his arms whispered through his tears, “Ezra. They called me ‘Ezra’.”

Even that felt like a sick joke, given that Beelzebub had undoubtedly remembered Aziraphale’s name even if he couldn’t remember it himself. He would expect that sort of sick sense of humour from Hell, but not from Heaven. He’d never expected Heaven to leave him in the dark when just knowing that Crowley was going to be alright would have brought him tremendous comfort in the face of losing him so abruptly.

Finally, after crying himself to the point of exhaustion, he looked up and asked Crowley, “...what are you doing here?”

It had been ten years, after all. Ten years since Hell sent him back up to Earth, and longer still since Crowley died and ascended to Heaven. It had been ten years of loneliness, misery, and ghosts.

“They had me working with Raphael, for a while,” Crowley explained, still cradling Ezra in his arms like he’d done so many times before when he was still human and the demon was still an angel. “Since he’d championed for me, they thought I ought to learn to heal from a proper healer. Then, out of nowhere, Gabriel just waltzed up to me and said, ‘Get down there and do some good.’”

Making a face, Ezra sneered, “ _Gabriel?_ ”

“Mmm. Bit of a tosser, isn’t he?”

Ezra scoffed, still clinging to Crowley as he muttered, “ _That_ would be the biggest understatement since the Beginning, my dear.”

Despite the tension still lingering in the room, Crowley smiled and nuzzled his nose into Ezra’s dark hair, whispering, “I’ve missed that.”

Furrowing his brow, Ezra looked up at Crowley, confusion clear in his dull eyes even from behind his spectacles.

“You’ve missed what?”

“You calling me ‘my dear’,” Crowley supplied, still smiling as he gazed down at Ezra. “Nobody calls me ‘my dear’ in Heaven.”

Sniffing, his cheeks turning pink, Ezra muttered, “Well, I should _hope_ not.”

For the first time since dying, Crowley laughed. It was such a familiar and enchanting sound, and Ezra felt his heart leap up into his throat as he heard it. Tears still lingering in his eyes, he lifted a hand to touch the angel’s cheek, staring reverently up at him. Really, it was miraculous that he didn’t Fall sooner; when the Hellfire cut him off from Heaven and he was abandoned on Earth, he’d quickly turned from worshipping God to worshipping Crowley. Crowley had his entire heart and all of his love; by the time he got his grace back, there had been no room left for anybody else.

“It’s really you, isn’t it?” he whispered, lifting his other hand to touch Crowley’s face as well. His touch seemed to leach all of the tension from Crowley’s body, much like it had so long ago. Some things never changed, even when everything else did.

“It’s me,” Crowley confirmed, turning his head to kiss one of Ezra’s palms, closing his eyes and relishing in the closeness. A moment later, a tear slipped down his own cheek – pure and shining, just like his angel’s had been on the night they met. After a beat of silence, his voice cracked as he whispered, “You Fell for me. You Fell and it was my fault.”

Ezra’s eyes widened at the insinuation. Shaking his head, he sat up enough to look at Crowley, still cupping his cheeks. Wiping away his tears, not caring that touching the drops of holy water burned his fingertips, he whispered, “Crowley. Oh, Crowley, _no._ Don’t you dare think like that – don’t you _dare_ , even for a moment. I fell for you a long, long time ago – but you did _not_ make me _Fall._ That was no one’s fault but my own. I knew what would happen if I cursed God… and I cursed him anyway. I cursed him for the pain that he let you feel, and for that pain that losing you caused me – and those were choices that I made. I didn’t Fall _because_ of you, I…” Swallowing roughly, Ezra whispered, “I chose to Fall because I couldn’t bear being affiliated with a Heaven that would allow you to suffer when I begged them to help you.”

Shaking his head, Crowley shuddered and curled himself around Ezra, legs winding around his middle and arms snaking around his neck until he was able to fully _cling_ to him. Desperately clutching the demon, he choked out, “They told me that you Fell when I died. They told me that you were in Hell. They told me that you _burned_ and I… I…!”

“Shhh… Hush now, none of that…” Ezra whispered, his arms wrapping tightly around the angel that was clinging to him. Turning to kiss his cheek, Ezra comfortingly insisted, “It wasn’t as bad as I’m sure they made it sound. It was… _unpleasant,_ obviously, but… the pain of Falling was nothing in comparison to the pain of losing you. I would have Fallen a thousand times over to spare you the pain that you felt in those last months…”

Staying tightly wound around Ezra, as if he might vanish if he let go, Crowley mumbled into his neck, “I barely remember any of it. That’s one thing that they don’t lie about, I suppose… There’s no pain in death. Heaven takes it away from you…”

 _Well,_ Ezra thought, shuddering and closing his eyes as he remembered watching Crowley waste away, holding him while he writhed in pain, hovering close by and trying to warm him with his grace as he coughed up blood and grew weaker and weaker, _perhaps I owe Heaven thanks, if only for that._

They stayed like that for a long while, until the night turned to daybreak and the birds began to sing outside, a faint glow infiltrating the bookshop’s backroom as early morning sunlight filtered in through the window. Ezra noticed as he held Crowley in the morning light that he could see his dearheart’s halo; a faint outline of it could be perceived in the sunlight, much like how dust can be seen floating through beams of light. Those early-morning and late-evening beams come directly from Heaven above – thus, a visible halo. Oddly enough, the sight caused an immense feeling of peace to wash through the demon. He’d always said that Crowley would make a wonderful angel – that he was more angelic than he himself had ever been. It was poetic, he supposed, that they should end up like this.

“I never thought I would get to hold you again,” Ezra whispered, breaking the comfortable silence, and Crowley finally looked up. Carding a gentle hand through the angel’s brown hair, Ezra stated, “There were moments, early on, when I was first allowed to come back here… I would sit and, against my better judgement, I prayed. I prayed that your soul would be kept safe, and… I selfishly prayed that I would get to hold you, just one more time.”

Staying quiet for a long while, Crowley finally whispered, “Maybe your prayers were answered.”

His gaze and his voice hollow, Ezra murmured, “Maybe.”

“Truly, though,” Crowley repeated with a bit more resolve, shifting on Ezra’s lap to meet his gaze full on. “Think about it for a moment. I would have died eventually, whether it be of cancer or of old age… This way, we were able to find each other again - to be together like we were before.”

Ezra stared into those chocolate brown eyes for a moment and then he frowned, shaking his head.

“That doesn’t explain why God would want me to Fall. If I’d been told what was going to happen… if I could have been allowed to remain an angel… we could have been together in Heaven from the start. Neither of us would have needed to suffer as we did.”

“But we couldn’t have been.”

Ezra’s frown deepened; he was clearly perplexed.

“What do you mean?”

“I _mean_ that we _couldn’t have been_ ,” Crowley repeated, sliding his hands gently to rest at either side of Ezra’s neck as he looked meaningfully at the demon. “Your job was to be on Earth – to oversee things _on Earth,_ to thwart Hell’s wiles _on Earth._ Heaven wanted me to be a healer. They wanted me Up There, not Down Here. If you’d stayed an angel, we never would have seen each other, and we’d both have been more miserable than ever knowing that we were so close but still so far apart.”

Ezra blinked several times, not having expected Crowley to say _that._ He wasn’t finished, though; while the demon stared at him, stunned, the angel kept on babbling, just like he always had.

“But when you Fell? You left a job vacancy open. Other angels tried to fill it, you know; Gabriel himself took a stab at it for a while.”

Ezra gagged.

“He had a similar reaction,” Crowley stated, smirking faintly. “They all hated it. They couldn’t appreciate the Earth for what it was and what it had to offer – not like you. That’s why Gabriel sent _me_ down; he couldn’t stand being on Earth himself, so who better to make fill the position than an angel who used to be a human?”

Positively gaping at this point, Ezra gasped out, “ _You?_ You’re here because… they sent you down to _take my place?_ ”

“ _Get down there and do some good_ ,” Crowley quoted Gabriel, humming thoughtfully and asking, “That about sums up your old job description, doesn’t it?”

Ezra made an incoherent noise in the back of his throat.

“Think about it, angel,” Crowley insisted, using the old pet-name regardless of their exchange of roles, reaching out to cup Ezra’s cheeks. “Hell sent you up here to make some trouble. Heaven sent me down to do some good. You wile, I thwart; rather a symbiotic relationship, if I do say so myself.” Smirking, he mused, “They wouldn’t have needed two angels on Earth, but an angel and a _demon?_ That balances out quite nicely.”

Making another incoherent noise, Ezra surged forward, sending both Crowley and himself toppling down onto the floor. Crowley’s white wings unfurled to break their fall just as Ezra’s lips crashed into his, and they fell in a downy-soft heap of feathers as they kissed for the first time in so, _so_ long. Crowley clung to Ezra’s sweater, still hideously tartan even as a demon, and Ezra whimpered into the kiss as he clutched the lapels of Crowley’s black suit jacket, of the exact same style he had worn to work every day as a defense attorney. So much had changed, and yet nothing had really changed at all.

Kissing each other rather desperately, in a tangle of limbs and wings, Ezra’s breath hitched when, uninhibited, Crowley started to shine beneath him. Angels shine their brightest when they experience love; that was why Heaven was so painfully bright, to the point of being blinding. In Heaven, an angel was as close to God’s love as they could possibly be, and it showed. Here, though, in the backroom of Ezra’s antique bookshop, the love surrounding Crowley and positively radiating from him in return had everything to do with the demon on top of him and hardly anything to do with God at all.

Pulling back to look down at him, watching him glow, Ezra choked out, “You’re beautiful.”

As he lay sprawled on the backroom’s floor, his wings spread out and with an armful of Ezra, Crowley found that he was just as awed by the demon now as he had been that day when he’d seen him glow with fully restored angelic grace. It didn’t matter if he had blond hair or black, or how bright his eyes were, or whether or not his wings were pristinely white; this demon was still Aziraphale, through and through. He’d loved him when he was tainted by Hellfire, and he loved him still, even now that he’d been thrust down into it. Angels and demons, Heaven and Hell – none of that mattered to Crowley. It never had. He was human when he fell in love with a fallen angel, and he loved his Fallen angel just as much.

“You’re more beautiful now than you’ve ever been,” Crowley insisted, and he saw the shock that coloured Ezra’s face instantaneously. Clearly, he hadn’t expected to be called beautiful in return; it wasn’t a word that he associated with himself anymore. Lifting a hand to cradle Ezra’s cheek, Crowley explained, “I never thought I’d get to see you again. Seeing you now, and getting to hold you like this…? Nothing has ever been more beautiful.”

Tears, for the umpteenth time, filled Ezra’s eyes. Struggling for a few moments to speak, he finally managed to tearfully whisper, “Oh, I _do_ love you. More than anything.”

Smiling softly, Crowley held Ezra closer to his chest and wrapped them both up in his white wings, sheltering them both like his angel had done so many times before, so long ago. Reaching out with his grace, he let it wash over them both, bathing Ezra in all of the love that he had inside of him. An angel’s love, after all, is the most powerful love of all.

“And I love you,” Crowley whispered, wiping away the tears that were streaming down Ezra’s cheeks as he basked in Crowley’s love, feeling it warm even the darkest and coldest corners of his heart. “Always.”

Choking on another sob, Ezra reached up and took Crowley’s face in his hands, tenderly memorizing every new detail to commit it all to memory as he whispered, “Forever.”

As the sunrise grew warmer outside, the glow of the angel in the bookshop’s backroom grew brighter as he and his demon kissed – tenderly and desperately, all at once.

And so it would go on, for as long as the Earth continued to turn and the sun shone in the sky. Ezra would wile and Crowley would thwart – and, most importantly of all, they would love each other with the kind of intensity that only angels, even those who have Fallen, can manage. In fact, they loved each other so intensely that London, despite having a resident demon, became quite a pleasant place to live, overall.

Perhaps that really was how it was meant to turn out all along.

**Author's Note:**

> I told you it was gonna be angsty.
> 
> Your thoughts and reactions are always appreciated; feel free to leave a comment below! <3


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